Curriculum Corner: 'Week Nine is in the books!'
“Curriculum Corner” is a bi-weekly column written by Blue Mountain School teachers to share insight and school happenings. Blue Mountain School is a progressive, contemplative school in Floyd where intentional curriculum planning is part of the everyday.
By Rashmi Staengl and Jason Beckner,
Blue Mountain School Jade teachers (serving five- to seven-year-olds)
This week during Morning Circle, all of our discussions centered around friendship — what it means, how important it is, and how we can strengthen and support our friendships both inside and outside the classroom.
We read the book “What Do You Do to Be a Good Friend,” made friendship bracelets, exchanged pinkie promises to each other on the friendly behavior we want each other to exhibit for the rest of the year, and we even talked virtually to Rashmi’s best friend from the Philippines. We also had a special celebration of our friend P’s birthday!
During Language Arts this week, our focus was on the letters F and O. We read sight words starting with F and O, matched words with their opposites, completed worksheets focused on those two letters, and made fall themed crafts (fallen leaves, pumpkins, the color orange, etc).
During Enrichment with Kris, our friends continued practicing with percussion instruments like drums and tambourines, and rehearsed “The Ghost of John.”
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In mindfulness with Jagadisha, they continued practicing stillness and quiet — how far they’ve come in just two months in their mindfulness ability is extremely impressive!
In Art with Lore, they added more pages to their personal art journals, and made nature based sun catchers using autumn objects like the beautiful multi-colored leaves all around us. For extra enrichment, once table work was completed, the kids completed activities like mancala, decoding messages using binary code, and fall color-by-number coloring sheets.
In Math this week, we continued our study of place value, skip counting and ordering numbers on number lines.
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For Writer’s Workshop this week, our friends read “The First Day of Octember” by Dr. Seuss, and wrote down all the wishes they’d have for Octember if it were a real month. They also brainstormed ideas for a Floyd Christmas parade float, and identified various signs they see in day-to-day life and were asked to write what they thought their meanings were.
For Writing Buddies on Tuesday, Jade and Amber friends went around the classroom and interviewed each other about their interests, like favorite sport, favorite color, etc.
Outdoor Explore and Science this week were focused on the habits and cultures of Native Americans both in our home (like the Tutelo and Iroquois) and throughout the United States. We discussed the importance of learning about the people that called this land home before the arrival of Europeans, and crafted totem poles and Native American homes from clay and recycled materials. We also experimented on densities of different colorful liquids and made distinctive layers like oil and water. To further demonstrate the separation of liquids, different tiny objects like beads and buttons were dropped to see whether they sink or float.
Thank you all for the hard work you do everyday in raising such vibrant and lovely children.
Blue Mountain School is currently accepting enrollment for the Jade class. Please reach out to Tammie@bluemountainschool.net for more information.
“Curriculum Corner” is a bi-weekly column written by Blue Mountain School teachers to share insight and school happenings. Blue Mountain School is a progressive, contemplative school in Floyd where intentional curriculum planning is part of the everyday.